


Happy Ending

by verbaeghe



Series: Unexpected [1]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Angst, Break Up, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Sad, Songfic, Tampa Bay Lightning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2021-01-25 22:28:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21363682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verbaeghe/pseuds/verbaeghe
Summary: This is the hardest story that I have ever told
Relationships: Braydon Coburn/Slater Koekkoek
Series: Unexpected [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1567846
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22





	Happy Ending

**Author's Note:**

> This has been bouncing around in my head for a while now, and I finally felt like I could write it. 
> 
> The lyrics for this come from a song called Happy Ending. It's very sad but also beautiful. Listen to it [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzoYgasvKdo), if you'd like.
> 
> Please forgive typos, my beta is NANOing

_Wake up in the morning, Stumble on my life_

Slater’s ringtone wakes Braydon from his pre-travel nap. He blindly searches out his phone without opening his eyes, breathing a sigh of relief when his hand closes on it. He hits the answer button on the way to his ear, pleased when he doesn’t smack himself in the head.

“You gonna be waiting in my bed when we get to Buffalo?” Braydon asks, smiling into the phone.

“They did it, Braydon.” Slater’s voice is flat, dead even.

Braydon is still sort of asleep, so he doesn’t catch on right away. “Did what?”

“Traded me.”

Braydon sits up, his heart suddenly pounding. “They…? No, it was just a conditioning stint, you’re meeting back up with the team later today.”

“Denial is a stage of grief,” Slater replies.

“What?” It isn’t that he’s really asking a question, he’s just thrown off by Slater’s response.

And Slater seems to get that. “Look, I’m about to board the flight to Chicago, I just didn’t want you to find out some other way.”

“Slater,--”

“They’re calling my number. Sorry, I have to go.” He pauses. “We’ll talk soon, okay?”

“Okay, I love you.”

“Talk to you later,” is all Slater says before the line goes dead. Braydon stares at his phone until it goes black, then wakes it back up so he can google the trade details.

_No hope, or love, or glory, Happy endings gone forever more_

They don’t talk again for three days. It shouldn’t seem that long, but it feels like a lifetime to Braydon. A lot of calls that go unanswered and aren’t returned.

But Slater’s finally picked up. “Hello?”

“Slater, hi. How are you?”

“It’s cold here. Kinda dreary. So I’m that. Yeah, let’s go dreary. I’m dreary.”

Braydon smiles despite himself. “I don’t think that’s a human trait.”

“Well, it is now.” Braydon hears him sigh. It’s a long, drawn out thing.

“That bad?” he asks.

“We should break up.”

“What? Why?” Braydon swallows. “Is it the distance? Slater, we can work with—”

“Yes. And no.” Another sigh. “It isn’t just the distance.”

“What else could it be?”

“We just went three days without talking,” Slater snaps. Braydon hears him inhale sharply. “I’m sorry, but I’m far away and in another conference and I’ll never be able to talk to you. Much less see you.”

“We’ll still have summer.”

“Seeing each other for two weeks out of the year isn’t going to cut it, Bray.”

Braydon’s eyes drop closed. It’s never good when Slater calls him Bray. He leans forward, pinches the bridge of his nose. “Slater, why can’t we just put this off until—”

“I have thought of nothing but this for three days. There’s no way to make this work anymore.” He says something to someone away from the phone, then he’s back. “Sorry, I gotta go. Practice in fifteen.”

“Alright,” Braydon says, just managing to keep his voice from breaking.

“Take care of yourself, alright?”

“Yeah, you too,” Braydon replies. He just manages to hang up before a sob escapes him.

So much for The One.

_If I pretend that nothing ever went wrong, can get to my sleep I can dream now and just carry on?_

Braydon is surprised when Mac hands him the Cup. He’d talked to G, who was getting it from Cally and G was supposed to give it to him. But now he already has it, skating on autopilot and jumping up and down like a kid.

He should give it to someone like Cally, so the normal list can be restored, but.

But.

He skates straight over to Slater. “We fucking did it, babe!” he screams as he hands it off.

“Just like I knew we would!” Slater yells back. He skates the smallest circle with it before offloading it on Cally and skating back to Braydon.

“That wasn’t much of a celebration,” Braydon laughs.

“Nah, I had a better idea for that,” Slater says before he double fists Braydon’s jersey and pulls him into a kiss.

Braydon startles awake.

At first he’s pissed that it was only a dream...but then he’s sad that now it will never happen.

_This is the way that we love, Like it’s forever_

Braydon flies to Chicago the moment he’s free for the bye week. It’s only been like two weeks, but he needs to see Slater, to talk to him face to face, because he’s still in turmoil, dreams every night about what will never be.

And he just can’t take it anymore.

_Hey, I’m here, where are you staying?_

_I can come get you _is the reply he gets. He shakes his head at his phone even though Slater isn’t there to see him.

_It’s fine, I can just take a shuttle_

_Ok_ Slater answers, followed by the hotel name and room number.

Braydon doesn’t say anything when Slater opens the door. He strides right by him and looks out the window. He needs a minute.

The door closes, but Slater doesn’t say anything for a full five minutes. Braydon knows.

He counts it.

“Braydon?” He turns back and Slater’s standing closer than expected. They stare at one another for what feels like an eternity. Slater takes his hand and leads him to the little loveseat in the corner. He squeezes Braydon’t hand once they’re seated and opens his mouth, but Braydon beats him to whatever he was going to say.

“What if I don’t want it to be over?”

“How do you suggest that we make it work when we’ll never see one another?” He shakes his head. “Not even able to talk regularly. It isn’t fair to either of us to always have our head in another place.”

“But I love you,” Braydon says quietly, looking down.

Slater’s hand cups his jaw, tips his face back up. “And I’ll always love you too. Nothing will ever change that, but right now we are in different places.” He smiles sadly. “Like, literally.”

“Slater.” Braydon isn’t afraid to admit that he whines.

“Hush and let me kiss you.” Slater pulls him in. The kiss is everything their kisses always have been. Sweet. Lingering. Heartfelt and warm.

But this time it feels like goodbye.

Braydon breaks the kiss and lays his forehead on Slater’s. “I’m gonna miss you so much.”

“An’ I’ll miss you, darlin’.”

“Kick the West’s ass, okay?” Braydon offers him a small smile that he returns.

“And yours.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Braydon answers with a little smirk. Slater laughs, and maybe this isn’t the end of the world after all.

_A little bit of love, little bit of love_

Braydon spends the rest of his bye week poolside at the Don Cesar. He feels refreshed, like a new person when he returns to his locker. He’s still a little sad, probably will be for a while, because what they had was amazing and sweet.

Perfect sometimes, even.

He thought Slater was The One, but sometimes fate has other plans.

Braydon steps on the ice and takes a couple of laps before heading over to stretch.

And anyway, he thinks as a pair of mischievous of brown eyes catch his attention from across the ice, sometimes those other plans aren’t so bad.

_Then live the rest of our life. But not together._


End file.
